An alternate title for this entry is ” What’s Taking So Flipping Long?” Let me explain.

In 2012, Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote an article in The Atlantic titled “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” This article sparked a great deal of debate and dialogue among professional women and was certainly a point of discussion for the founding authors of this blog. Recently, Ms. Slaughter’s spouse, Andrew Moravcsik, added his own entry into the same periodical, which was titled “Why I Put My Wife’s Career First.” As you can guess from the title, it was a personal reflection of the choices that the two-career couple made with respect to the ever elusive balancing act of raising kids and having a meaningful careers.

As you can imagine, this article elicited some strong responses from the women in our group, especially from me. My reaction was this…of course there’s a lead parent!Sometimes, there’s even only one parent. We’ve all known this. It seems as if it’s taking a really long time to finally realize it’s OK if it’s a male lead parent. Like a really long time. And, apparently, it takes a Princeton professor to say, “It’s okay, guys, you’re going to have to give up some things but this, this bond with the kids, ya’ know, you should really try it out.”

One morning a few months back, I stopped by the office of one of the department chairs at my institution. She and I had been trying to connect all week to discuss a student matter and just kept missing one another. I got lucky on this day—a Friday at just after 9:00 am—finding her at her desk deeply engrossed in a stack of paperwork. We exchanged pleasantries and jumped right into conversation about the student issue.

As our interaction came to a close, I said something like, “I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you—I have been running behind all week. And Fridays are my mornings to drop my son off at daycare, so I always get to work late.” She stopped short and said, Continue reading No More, “I’m Late!”→